
The Blind Chick Blind X-Men & Button Mashing Brilliance: Gable Meade
Dec 18, 2025
01:00:17
Penn Street and Moses Street welcome guest Gable Mead for a Facebook Live “podcast time travel” conversation recorded in July 2025 but airing during the holidays. They open with a story about a blind child interviewing her parents and use it as a springboard into how fear and misconceptions fade when people learn blindness skills firsthand.
Gable shares his vision-loss story (bilateral retinoblastoma, gradual loss of remaining vision, and later choosing a prosthetic for comfort), plus what it’s like living with vivid “phantom vision” effects and how that can impact sleep. From there, the conversation shifts into blind gaming—how Gable transitioned into fighting games, competes in-person, and helped build a strong community of blind gamers.
Gable explains the Cento Showdown (a Mortal Kombat tournament for blind/low-vision players) and his extensive accessibility work: long-form visual/cosmetic guides created with AI image descriptions, then carefully verified and rewritten to reduce errors and hallucinations. He also shares his day job as an educational braillist, how he found it after a discouraging job search, and why the work is unexpectedly fulfilling. The episode closes with encouragement around kindness (especially toward yourself), plus where to follow Gable and find his work.
Contact Info
Guest / Project
Cento Showdown: @CentoShowdown (Twitter/X), thecentoshowdown.com
Gable Mead: @BlindsightBlue (social), Twitch: BlindsightBlue
Aftersight
Email: feedback@aftersight.org
Phone: (720) 712-8856
Produced by: Jonathan Price (Aftersight)
Show Credits
Show: The Blind Chick (An Aftersight Original Podcast)
Hosts: Penn Street, Moses Street
Guest: Gable Mead
Producer: Jonathan Price
Chapter Markers
00:00 — Cold open + “podcast time travel” (Facebook Live)
02:22 — NPR story: fear fades when you learn the skills
04:35 — “X-Men” analogy + trauma, adaptation, and senses
07:02 — Gable’s story: retinoblastoma, vision loss timeline
11:40 — Phantom vision and sleep disruption
16:26 — Prosthetics as art (custom colors, identity, and fit)
22:10 — Imagining people + building mental pictures
24:33 — Blind gaming: why fighting games work (audio + mind games)
29:13 — “Real job?” + why gaming stays a hobby
31:35 — The massive MK1 cosmetics guide (scope + structure)
36:28 — AI limits: verification process and rewriting for accuracy
43:30 — Becoming a braillist + barriers in job searching
47:56 — Why the braillist role is fulfilling (and surprising)
54:41 — Last words: kindness, self-compassion, perseverance
57:07 — Creating a new game? Writing dreams (Spider-Man aspiration)
59:19 — Wrap + where to find Cento Showdown and BlindsightBlue
